Day 47

It’s probably been about a month since I’ve been here. I’m not really sure, to be honest. I haven’t looked at a calendar in ages. My watch ran out of battery a couple of days ago, too, so I don’t even know what time it is right now. Or maybe that was a week ago. As I said, I have no idea what’s going on anymore.

That’s why I’m writing in this notebook. It’s the only thing that has been keeping me sane. I tried keeping track of the days at the top of every entry, but sometimes I was so hungry I passed out. Or at least it felt like I passed out. I have no recollection of what happened on those days. All I knew was that I haven’t died yet. 

It’s very lonely out here all alone in the woods. You’d think that I would have gotten used to being alone and hearing eerie cracking noises and growls at night, but no. I’ve resorted to making a fire every night out of fear that something might eat me while I’m sleeping. I already burned all the wood that was left in the big bonfire when I tried to alert people of where I was, but that didn’t work. Now I am burning anything I can get my hands on. Shirts, jackets, rope, tents, I don’t care. I just want someone to find me and bring me back home.

Sometimes, as I sit here in the woods listening to the birds sing and the wind blow through the trees, I think of how differently everything could have ended if I had just woken up. I really miss the crew, or at least most of them. I had always thought that John was hiding something, and I guess that turned out to be true, although I can’t be sure. The night the artifacts disappeared, I could have sworn I heard John whistling in the camp. But I didn’t wake up. I didn’t get out of bed. And then, when the river flooded and swept up anything that wasn’t hammered into the ground, I still didn’t wake up. Not for a long time. Everyone was shouting and screaming outside, desperate to save what they could. And I heard them. But I didn’t get up to help them. 

When I finally rolled myself out of bed, it was too late. Suzie and Jack must have been swept away with the flood. John had disappeared, and so had the artifacts. I was the only one left. I clutched the small Buddha statue I had found close to my chest. Most of the tents had collapsed or were leaning heavily to one side, their fabrics completely soaked. But my tent had remained dry. It was higher up than the rest of them and the furthest away from the river.

Some say that God works in mysterious ways. If that’s the case, I often wonder why He left me here and took my friends instead. I had never done anything wrong, but neither had they. None of them deserved to die. And I wonder why He took those beautiful artifacts away from me, only to give them back slowly. 

I say this because, for some weird reason, some of the artifacts have been reappearing recently. The hand-painted vase we found was suddenly lying next to me one morning. Fragments of bowls and small Buddhist figurines began appearing in odd places around the camp. There is no way that John would have accidentally taken them when he ran away. And I knew that he had taken them. I was sure of it, even if I can’t prove it. It had to have happened that way. Suzie, Jack, and I loved those artifacts, and we wanted to share them with the entire world. And as the leader of the excavation, I was the one who would get the most out of keeping the artifacts safe.

There is no way that I could have taken them. Absolutely no way. It was John. Definitely John. I would have risen to the top of the archeological field. No longer would people have called me a fool for trying to find the hidden temples. No longer would they call me a liar, a con man, someone desperate for attention. I would have gone down in history. I would have become rich and famous. They would have made movies about me and my life! 

But I would have had to share everything with Suzie and Jack, and I hate sharing. This excavation is my life’s work. This is the culmination of everything I have ever worked for. Not them nor John could take that away from me. And that’s why I stole the artifacts. There, I said it. It was me, not John. I hired John because he had a history of stealing. It would have been easy to pin the artifacts’ disappearance on him. Foolish idiot.

Why did I do it? Because I want the glory. I want the fame. I want my name and no one else’s in the history books. That’s not just something I want. That type of recognition is what I deserve. But then John stole the artifacts and messed up my entire plan. Now I’m stuck in these horrid woods all by myself, as I slowly lose grasp of sanity.

And you, my dear reader, may think I’m crazy. You may think I was the one putting the artifacts all over the camp. But I’m not. John stole the artifacts, and anyone who believes otherwise is a fool. There is no evidence tying me to the theft. Besides, I am no madman. I am a sane and logical minded person. I would never do something like that, and even though my memory has been failing me the longer I’m out here, by no means does that give you a right to accuse me. I am innocent. Mark my words. One day, your children will be creating presentations about me and my treasures.

by JULIA ARNOLD